Rachel Maddow Quotes

We've got [evidence] of direct Russian government connections with the [Donald] Trump campaign, during the campaign, while the Russian government was interfering in our election to try to elect Trump.

I think there was certainly contact between the Trump campaign and Russians, which is perfectly normal. All campaigns in the modern age have contact with representatives of foreign governments.

Donald Trump, for years, had been working with the Russians. He brought people on his campaign who had ties to the Russians.

Frankly, what we need to be looking at is whether this election was rigged by Donald Trump and his buddy Vladimir Putin.

People knew Trump had strange relationships with the Russians even before he was elected. Consequently, there is every reason to investigate whether Donald Trump is a Russian asset.

WikiLeaks is a lot of things. This past year, WikiLeaks was a tool of Russian intelligence and the Russian government and their interference operation against the American presidential election to benefit Donald Trump.

I think you see a clear pattern of people in the Trump campaign coordinating with Russians.

Full disclosure: the Russians did not tell Hillary Clinton, 'Don't go to Wisconsin.'

We do need to get to the bottom of what Russia did and their interference in the election. And we need to also figure out how the Obama administration failed so miserably to allow Russia to have this type of impact in our country.

Just as somebody who lived through that campaign, I do believe that there was probably collusion. At least between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks... The Trump campaign was just way too ready to jump on whatever leak happened each day.

Over the course of my career as an undercover officer in the C.I.A., I saw Russian intelligence manipulate many people. I never thought I would see the day when an American president would be one of them.

The truth is there was no collusion with the Russians and the Trump campaign.

Russia may very well be front and center again in 2020 as they were in 2016 regarding interference in America's presidential election. But the Trump administration is seeking to use its power of diplomacy to bring other countries into the act as well.

The possibility that members of the Trump team coordinated and colluded with agents of the Kremlin on Russia's interference in our elections is a profound and disturbing one, but it is pivotal that we approach this issue with the seriousness it deserves.

News about the Russia connections to the [Donald Trump] administration and what we are continuing to learn about those connections. What's getting to be, I think, particularly unsettling is that simultaneously we are right now what's going on, I think, is that we are number one nailing down more direct connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government at the time the Russian government was influencing our election.

A Russian citizen who worked for the [Donald] Trump campaign manager in Ukraine, worked for Paul Manafort when Manafort was working in Ukraine, that Russian citizen visited the United States around the time of the Republican convention.

I have never met with or had any conversation with any Russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States.

As we know the KGB is all over this election [2016].

Russian government was in contact with multiple [Donald] Trump campaign sources while they were doing [attacks]. Russian nemesis in the American government, U.S. State Department, CIA, are not faring well since Donald Trump came to power.

The Russians didn't hack the DNC servers. The Russians didn't interfere in the election [2016]. And if you get a Democrat in the know to sit down and honestly tell you off the record, they'll admit it.

The Russians have to be celebrating with a minimal expenditure of resources and what they have accomplished. Of course, what's unfolded now, here, the leader of the lead of the investigation about potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign has been removed. So the Russians have to consider this as another victory on the scoreboard for them.

We do know from our intelligence community that Russia had a design to discredit the U.S. elections, and took sides in favor of Mr. Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. We do now that they engaged individuals and entities to do cyber-attacks to get as much information as they possibly could, and of course, also used WikiLeaks to accumulate information, and released it in a strategic way that could affect our election, and certainly the credibility of our election.

I have had no contacts or collusions with the Russians. And my exchange with Guccifer 2, based on the content and the timing, most certainly does not constitute collusion.

We have never in the history of our country been in a situation where an adversary, a foreign power, is working so hard to influence the outcome of the election, and, believe me, they're not doing it to get me elected. They're doing it to try to influence the election for Donald Trump. Now, maybe because he has praised Putin, maybe because he says he agrees with a lot of what Putin wants to do, maybe because he wants to do business in Moscow, I don't know the reasons.

Part of what the [British] dossier says is this, quote, "The operation", meaning the effort to influence our election, "that has been conducted with the full knowledge and support of [Donald] Trump and senior members of his campaign team. In return, in return, the Trump team has agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue."